


School Dances and Sidekicks

by alianora



Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:32:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alianora/pseuds/alianora
Summary: He sits alone - people know better than to bother him.At least, they used to. Before Layla and her crew of misfit toys invaded his space and his lunch table. And his plan of avoiding any and all school activities forever.





	School Dances and Sidekicks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kenopsia (indie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indie/gifts).



Warren Peace is going to Homecoming for the first time in his school career. He tugs on the tie he is wearing and scowls in confusion at himself in the mirror.

 

Why is he even doing this?

 

It’s not a date at all. Layla likes Stronghold, and Warren doesn’t like anything, so it’s definitely not a date. 

 

His mom stops and lets out a sharp breath when she sees him walk down the stairs wearing his father’s tux, but she gives him a tight smile and still harasses him into standing against the wall so she can take a few thousand pictures. A few of which he even agrees to smile in.

 

He catches the school bus up to the school with a bunch of other kids, all of who are buzzing with excitement and whispering about who is taking who and what people will be wearing and  if their date brought flowers. Taking the school bus up to a dance seems a little uncool, but there aren’t exactly flying cars available to most of the kids. He can feel the others whispering a little about him and why he was there, but he ignores them. He sits alone - people know better than to bother him.

 

At least, they used to. Before Layla and her crew of misfit toys invaded his space and his lunch table. And his plan of avoiding any and all school activities forever.

 

He still has no idea why he’s agreed to do this. Maybe it’s to torment Stronghold. He deserves it. Let him be jealous of Warren’s life, for once.

 

But maybe he’s doing this because it’s not a bad thing to have Layla sitting with him at lunch, chattering away about the difficulties of growing lemons or the fate of the animals in the puppy mills that she reads about on the internet. He doesn’t talk back to her much, not at school, but he listens. He pretends he doesn't - pretends he’s busy reading or eating or doing anything else - but he is listening.

 

Maybe it just nice to not be alone all the time. Even if it means he has to put up with the nerds that are Layla’s friends.

 

He lingers behind the others as they tumble off the bus excitedly, so he gets there a few minutes late and sees her at the food table. The other tagalongs are there too, but Layla isn’t paying them any attention. She’s looking around with her hands twisted in anxiety.

 

And before he can think about it too hard - before he can wonder if she’s looking for him or or Stronghold - he’s walking up to her.

 

He watches her face light up in a smile and he is struck by the fact that look is directed at him. He knew what most people thought of him - when you’re the child of one of the worst supervillains the world has ever known, people don’t tend to be very friendly. But Layla has never flinched in the slightest at his personality, his reputation, or his powers. She rolls her eyes, she snarks right back at him, and she bulldozes her way right past his grumpiness and it somehow ends up with him doing completely out of character things like going to Homecoming.

 

Layla clutches at his hand tightly as Grayson gets up to give her boring speech and give an award to the Commander. Warren has not figured out a way to tell her that he saw Stronghold the night before at the restaurant and that Stronghold and Grayson had fallen apart. He didn’t know why he did that, either.

 

Of course, then Grayson turns out to be Royal Pain, which was not something that Warren had seen coming. Neither had the Commander, that was for sure, as the guy that Warren had hated for years is suddenly crying on the floor tangled in his cape. He is also now less than a year old, by Warren’s best guess.

 

Coach yells to evacuate, but Warren and the sidekicks end up being the only ones who got out. And the Stronghold was there and Layla was both yelling at him and forgiving him, and Warren figures his first attempt at a Homecoming dance was over for good.

 

It is definitely a memorable way to end a school dance, that’s for sure.

 

But even with all of the clean up needed, and with Layla and Stronghold off in goofy, happy love-land, Layla finds Warren again as he picks up the shattered pieces of the punchbowl off of the gym floor.

 

Her hair is tangled and her face is dirty, but she still smiles when she sees him. She looks somewhere between exhausted and exhilarated, and Warren startles when she drops onto the floor next to him and folds her legs under her.

 

“Well, this was...quite a dance,” Layla says, picking at a large tear in the skirt of her dress and looking around at the devastation with a wry twist to her mouth. “It’s not quite what I had in mind for my first high school dance.”

 

“Yeah, me either,” is all he says in response as he settles back on his heels across from her, avoiding her thoughtful gaze.

 

Layla watches Warren pick at a few small shards in front of him, her chin in her hands.

 

“Why aren’t you and Stronghold slow dancing on what’s left of the gym floor, anyway?” He finally brings himself to ask, honestly curious as to why she’s wasting her time watching him clean up blue punch.

 

That surprises a laugh out of her. “Oh, we had our slow dance  _ above  _ the gym, if you can believe it,” she admits. “But then Will needed to go with his parents to be either disciplined or celebrated, I’m not sure which. And besides,” Warren catches her smile out of the corner of his eye. “I needed to say goodbye to my Homecoming date.”

 

Warren starts to look up at her, but freezes as he feels her lips brush against his cheek.

 

“Thank you,” she says simply. “For everything.” She squeezes his hand, smiles again, and walks away.

 

He stays on the floor staring after her for a long time.

 

END


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